Grant Processes and Guidelines
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Grant Processes
Grant Processes and Applications
All grant applications are submitted through the organization’s online grants submission system, which provides explicit and clear guidelines to grant applicants. Grant applications are considered in the context of Global Action’s mission and strategic plan.
Global Action uses three primary processes for identifying potential grants. These are: (i) requests for proposals and funding announcements; (ii) solicited applications; and (iii) unsolicited applications.
Grant proposals undergo several rounds of review by program staff, independent third parties, and the Board of Directors. Assessment is based on relevance of the project objective, rigor of the approach, ethical considerations, and experience of the project team.
All proposed grant funded research must be designed and implemented in a manner that is consistent with research best practices and research ethical principles. In particular, all research involving human participants must be designed and implemented in a manner that is consistent with human subjects research best practices and ethical principles. These requirements may include seeking and receiving Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, fair recruitment, and participant informed consent. Research proposals involving human participants receive an additional level of review to assess that these criteria will be met.
Below are some websites that provide general information regarding research involving human subjects. This list is not intended to be exhaustive. All investigators who intend to conduct grant funded research involving human subjects must comply with their host institution policies relating to human subjects research and are encouraged to obtain detailed information and training on this topic from their host institution.
- The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity – ALLEA
- Ethical Codes & Research Standards | HHS.gov
- Guiding Principles for Ethical Research | National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- Research Ethics and Integrity Awareness.pdf (ed.ac.uk)
Open Science Principles
All grant funded research must be conducted in a manner that is consistent with Open Science principles. Open Science is the principle and practice of making research products and processes available to all, while respecting diverse cultures, maintaining security and privacy, and fostering collaborations, reproducibility, and equity. In line with this practice, grantees are required to publish in open access journals, disseminate their findings, and, where appropriate, share published materials, code, and data for research purposes. Grantees are encouraged, but not required, to consider depositing articles on a publicly accessible preprint server.
Scientific Review Criteria
The following review criteria will be applied in the review of all research grant proposals:
Criteria 1: Importance of the Research (25%)
a) Significance
b) Actionability
c) Alignment with Global Action research priorities
Criteria 2: Research Factors (50%)
a) Methodological Approach
b) Feasibility
c) Approach to Human Subjects Protection/Data Confidentiality (as appropriate)
Criteria 3: Expertise and Resource (25%)
a) Qualifications of Principle Investigators and Named Staff
b) Research Environment
Criteria Assessed but Not Scored
a) Budget
b) Communication and Dissemination Plan (if relevant)
All grant applicants will be advised of the outcome of their applications via email after funding decisions are finalized.
Cessation Education and Dissemination Project Review Criteria
Global Action also funds grants for cessation education projects. The following review criteria will be applied in the review of these types of grant proposals:
Criteria 1: Importance of the Project (25%)
a) Significance
b) Actionability
c) Alignment with Global Action research priorities
Criteria 2: Project Factors (50%)
a) Implementation Approach
b) Feasibility
Criteria 3: Expertise and Resource (25%)
a) Qualifications of Project Leads and Named Staff
b) Organizational Resources and Project Environment
Criteria Assessed but Not Scored
a) Budget
b) Communication and Dissemination Plan (if relevant)
All grant applicants will be advised of the outcome of their applications via email after funding decisions are finalized.
Grant Guidelines
Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest
The Organization maintains a Conflict of Interest Policy, which can be found here. Article VIII of Global Action’s Bylaws.
As part of the grant application process, all key study personnel are required to disclose in writing, among other potential conflicts, any direct or indirect ownership or investment interest in, or any past or present financial relationship, including, but not limited to, salary or wages, remuneration, consulting fees, honoraria, expert testimony fees or speaking engagement fees received from, a tobacco company or any commercial entity involved in the development and/or commercialization of nicotine-containing products or the tobacco reduction or smoking cessation field or that otherwise may be affected by the scientific research conducted or funded by the Organization.
All key study personnel are also required to report other potential conflicts as required by the Policy.
Expenditure Responsibility and Equivalency Determinations
The Organization, as a private foundation under U.S. tax laws, exercises “expenditure responsibility” in accordance with Section 4945(h) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code”), with respect to grants to organizations, domestic or foreign, that are not public charities recognized as tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Code. Alternatively, with respect to the making of a grant to a foreign organization that is the equivalent of a public charity under U.S. law, in lieu of exercising expenditure responsibility, the Organization may make an “equivalency determination.” A grant applicant’s organizational status will not affect the consideration of its application. However, successful grant applicants may be asked to provide the Organization with additional information about the grantee organization prior to execution of a grant award to ensure that the Organization can meet its tax law obligations.
Expenditure responsibility requires a private foundation to exert all reasonable efforts and establish adequate procedures to see that a grant is spent solely for the purpose for which it was made, obtain full and complete reports from the grantee on how funds were spent and make full and detailed reports with respect to such expenditures on an annual basis on the private foundation’s Form 990-PF filed with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
The general requirements for expenditure responsibility are: (i) a pre-grant inquiry regarding the grantee: (ii) a written agreement specifying the charitable purposes the grantee intends to accomplish and containing certain limitations (such as prohibiting the use of grant funds for lobbying) and (iii) providing that the grantee establish a separate account for the grant funds; (iv) regular reports from the grantee; and (iv) annual reporting by the Organization to the IRS on its Form 990-PF indicating that expenditure responsibility payments were made, including a brief description of each grant. The grant-making procedures the Organization has established, including the application process, the terms of the grant agreement, and the required reporting and recordkeeping by the grantee, are designed to ensure compliance with the requirements of “expenditure responsibility.”
To fulfil the requirements of equivalency determination, the Organization must make a good faith determination based on an affidavit and analysis of financial, programmatic, governance, and other documents from the potential grantee or an opinion of legal counsel that the grantee is the equivalent to a U.S. public charity.
Grant Funding
Global Action to End Smoking, Inc. awards grants for charitable, scientific, and educational purposes within the meaning of section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), to support its mission to improve public health by ending the smoking epidemic.
While Global Action appreciates that all grant applications are the result of considerable effort, it makes no representations that any grant application will be funded. All decisions to fund grants remain in the sole discretion of Global Action. Grant proposals and related documentation will be disclosed to employees, consultants, legal counsel, and others. Grant proposals and related documentation will not be treated as confidential and Global Action does not maintain the confidentiality of any such materials. Grant applicants should carefully consider the content of grant proposals and related documentation and not include any proprietary or confidential information if there is any concern about the impact of disclosure of these materials.
Grants that Global Action does not fund include those that are prohibited by applicable laws and regulations including grants in support of lobbying or political campaign activities. These include grants relating to attempts to influence legislation, either by communicating with government personnel who are involved in the legislative process or urging the public to do so. These prohibited grants include both domestic and international activities. Similarly, Global Action grant monies are not used to influence the outcome of any political campaigns or to conduct voter registration drives, either within the United States or abroad. Global Action generally may fund grant activity that properly qualifies as an exception to lobbying, such as grants for nonpartisan analysis, study, or research, and grant work being performed in response to a written request for technical assistance.
In addition, grants will not be made to any organization that is not authorized in its country of origin to receive grant funds from Global Action and/or whom Global Action is prohibited or restricted by law or regulation from funding. Global Action’s rigorous procedures for making and monitoring grants ensure that its grant funds are used for the intended charitable purposes and not to support terrorist or other illegal activities.